They Might Be Giants

Navigation menu

They Might Be Giants discography. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Retrieved July 16, Scott and Joanne Woodward. The title referred to the section of the record store where TMBG releases were often found as well as to the overall eclectic nature of the tracks. During this time, the band also worked on a project for McSweeney's , a publishing company and literary journal. Retrieved January 14,

What happened?

During this hiatus, they began recording their songs onto an answering machine , and then advertising the phone number in local newspapers such as The Village Voice , using the moniker "Dial-A-Song". Dial-A-Song consisted of an answering machine with a tape of the band playing various songs. The machine played one track at a time, ranging from demos and uncompleted work to mock advertisements the band had created.

It was often difficult to access due to the popularity of the service and the dubious quality of the machines used. The number , was a local Brooklyn number and was charged accordingly, but the band advertised it with the line: At one point in , the Dial-A-Song answering machine recorded a conversation between two people who had listened to Dial-A-Song, then questioned how they made money out of it.

John Linnell stated in an interview in early that Dial-A-Song had died of a technical crash, and that the Internet had taken over where the machine left off. On November 15, , the Dial-A-Song number was officially disconnected, though the number has at times been re-used in a similar style by other independent artists.

The duo released their self-titled debut album in , which became a college radio hit. In , they released their second album, Lincoln , named after the duo's hometown. It featured the song " Ana Ng " which reached No. Flood earned them a platinum album, largely thanks to the success of " Birdhouse in Your Soul " which reached number three on the US Modern Rock chart, as well as " Istanbul Not Constantinople ", a cover of a song originally by The Four Lads.

John Flansburgh said, "Ng is a Vietnamese name. The song is about someone who's thinking about a person on the exact opposite side of the world. John looked at a globe and figured out that if Ana Ng is in Vietnam and the person is on the other side of the world, then it must be written by someone in Peru ".

Further interest in the band was generated when two cartoon music videos were created by Warner Bros. Animation for Tiny Toon Adventures: The title referred to the section of the record store where TMBG releases were often found as well as to the overall eclectic nature of the tracks.

Apollo 18 was also notable for being one of the first albums to take advantage of the CD player's shuffle feature. The song "Fingertips" actually comprised 21 separate tracks — short snippets that not only acted together to make the song but that when played in random order would be interspersed between the album's full-length songs.

Due to mastering errors, the UK and Australian versions of Apollo 18 contained "Fingertips" as one track. John Henry was released in Influenced by their more conventional lineup, this album marked a departure from their previous releases with more of a guitar-heavy sound.

Their next album, Factory Showroom , was released in to little fanfare. The band had quickly moved away from the feel of John Henry , and Factory Showroom returns to the more diverse sounds of their earlier albums, despite the inclusion of two guitarists, the second being Eric Schermerhorn who provided several guitar solos.

They left Elektra after the duo refused to do a publicity show, amongst other exposure-related disputes. In , they released a mostly-live album Severe Tire Damage from which came the single " Doctor Worm ", a studio recording. Around this same time period, Danny Weinkauf bass and Dan Miller guitar were recruited for their recording and touring band. Weinkauf and Miller have continued to work with the band to the present day. As early as , the band was sending news updates to their fans via Usenet newsgroups.

In , They Might Be Giants became the first major-label recording artist to release an entire album exclusively in mp3 format. The album, Long Tall Weekend. Also, in , the band contributed the song "Dr. Evil" to the motion picture Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. During this time, the band also worked on a project for McSweeney's , a publishing company and literary journal. The band wrote a McSweeney's theme song and forty-four songs for an album that was meant to be listened to with the journal, with each track corresponding to a particular story or piece of artwork.

Labeled They Might Be Giants vs. McSweeney's , the disk appears in issue No. Contributing the single "Boss of Me" as the theme song to the hit television series Malcolm in the Middle , as well as to the show's compilation CD , brought a new audience to the band.

Not only did the band contribute the theme, songs from all of the Giants' previous albums were used on the show: Another song to feature in the series was "Spiraling Shape".

It was their first full album release of new studio material since and their first since parting ways with Elektra. The film was released on DVD in In , they released No! Using the enhanced CD format, it included an interactive animation for most of the songs. They followed it up in with their first book, an illustrated children's book with an included EP, Bed, Bed, Bed. In , the band created one of the first artist-owned online music stores, at which customers could purchase and download MP3 copies of their music, both new releases and many previously released albums.

By creating their own store, the band could keep money that would otherwise go to record companies. With the redesign of the band's website in , the store was reincarnated. Also, in , the band released its first new "adult" rock work since the release of No! In they recorded a track for the th Strong Bad e-mail, where Linnell provided the voice of The Poopsmith.

The band contributed " Tippecanoe and Tyler Too ", a political campaign song from the presidential election of All proceeds went to progressive organizations such as Music for America and MoveOn. Flansburgh and Linnell made a guest appearance in " Camp ", the January 11, , episode of the animated sitcom Home Movies. They voice both a pair of camp counselors and members of a strange hooded male bonding cult. Following the Spine on the Hiway Tour of , the band announced that they would take an extended hiatus from touring to focus on other projects, such as a musical produced by Flansburgh and written by his wife, Robin "Goldie" Goldwasser , titled People Are Wrong!

To promote the album, Flansburgh and Linnell along with drummer Marty Beller embarked on a short tour, performing for free at many Borders Bookstore locations. It is a concept album based on all of the "venue songs" from their tour.

Since December , They Might Be Giants have been making podcasts on a monthly, sometimes bi-monthly, basis. Each edition includes remixes of previous songs, rarities, covers, and new songs and skits recorded specifically for the podcast.

In the aired advertisement, Flansburgh sings "Fritalian" along with his wife, Robin Goldwasser. In a commercial, "Moving" is played. The band has produced and performed three original songs for Playhouse Disney series: The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse features two original songs performed by group, including the opening theme song, in which a variant of a Mickey Mouse Club chant "Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse!

The song references Mickey's first spoken words in the short The Karnival Kid. The band was recruited to provide original songs for the Henry Selick -directed movie of Neil Gaiman 's children's book Coraline but were dropped because their music was not "creepy" enough. Advance copies were made available to stations by mid-June The band's fourteenth album, Here Comes Science , a science-themed children's album. It was released on September 1, , and nominated for a Grammy Award on December 1, On November 3, They Might Be Giants sent out a newsletter stating "The Avatars of They", a set of sock puppets the Johns manipulate for shows, will have an album in , suggesting another children's album.

However, a new adult album titled Join Us was released on July 19, On March 5, , the band released their sixteenth adult studio album, Nanobots , on their Idlewild Recordings label in the US and on British indie label Lojinx in Europe. The live album Flood Live in Australia was made available for free digital download by the band in Also in , the band reactivated its Dial-A-Song service under the banner of Dial-A-Song-Direct, promising to release one new song every week for the entire year, beginning with the track "Erase" on January 5.

Several of these songs were planned to be collected on a new studio rock album entitled Glean on April 21, The band released their newest children's album, Why? It was their fifth children's album and the first children's album to be released under their own label, Idlewild Recordings. In a video released on December 20, , John Flansburgh announced that the band would be taking a temporary break following their U.

Dial-A-Song was revived in , with a new phone number , the website, and a radio network. On March 8, , the band released Phone Power , their nineteenth studio album and the third containing songs from the revival of their Dial-a-Song service. Playfair is initially dismissive of Watson's attempts to psychoanalyze him, but when he hears her name, he enthusiastically incorporates her into his life as Doctor Watson to his Holmes.

The title is an indirect reference to Don Quixote 's famous exploit of tilting at windmills , believing them to be "monstrous giants ". Despite the protest of his aide Sancho Panza and being soundly defeated at the hands of the "giants" that is, being tossed away by a mill's sail after getting his lance caught in it , Quixote maintains his belief that the mills are not buildings but giants.

In reference to this, Playfair argues:. Of course, he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. But, thinking that they might be Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn't? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we'd all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

The film opened to mixed reviews. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "a mushy movie with occasional, isolated moments of legitimate comedy. The original release length was 98 minutes. Netflix's streaming version and the DVD released in are A version edited for television in was The currently available made-on-demand DVD runs slightly over 87 minutes; none of the home video releases include the full film. The largest missing material is a long sequence near the end that takes place in a grocery store.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. June Learn how and when to remove this template message. The New York Times.